This Spring, my husband (Mike) and I purchased a third of a cow, which (I come to find out) is a hell of a lot of cow. We split this cow with Mike’s parents and sister. No, we are not sharing a pet cow. The cow came from a farm called At Ease Acres in Berne, NY and was butchered and packaged by Nichols Meat Processing in Altamont, NY.

This is no ordinary cow. It’s farm-raised, grass-fed, all-natural (yadda yadda)… And as I understand it, he was a very happy and healthy cow, which I hear is important to how the sacrificial cow will taste.

So, it toll, our portion of the steer weighed about 250lbs. My father-in-law says you can direct the butcher in how the cow is cut. We each received cuts of porterhouse, bone-in rib-eye roasts, T-bone steaks, shoulder for London broil, bone-in top sirloins, top round roasts, bottom round roasts, sirloin tip roasts, boneless chuck steaks, and about 40 (1lb) packages of ground beef.

This purchase has required that I do some research to get more creative in my beef recipes. For one thing, ground beef is not my favorite thing. We’ve had meatballs of the Swedish, Moroccan and Italian variety, as well as Stuffed Cabbage and Stuffed Peppers, pasta with bolognaise, and stuffed cheeseburgers. (Feel welcome to forward any creative ground beef recipes.)

The porterhouse steaks are a luxury, and they are juicy and delicious. However, I find that one is too small for the two of us, and two is too big. We’ve had leftovers each time we’ve grilled these, and I made steak quesadillas and steak sandwiches.

The front-end expense was significant, and slightly more expensive on average than buying beef from the grocery store, but I’ve noticed a big difference in our grocery bills because I’m buying less meat. And, the taste is far superior and there is piece-of-mind in knowing where our dinner came from.

Where have we put this cow, you ask (for those of you who know we live in a two bedroom apartment, on the fourth floor of a walkup)? Well, we purchased a chest freezer from my pops for a reasonable price (we had to throw in a couple of steaks); we carried the three large boxes of beef and the chest freezer up the four flights of stairs and it resides in the spare bedroom. (I’m open to suggestions of how to disguise this monstrosity from public view! It’s messing up my feng shui). Moo!